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At-a-glance/Aztec mythology
Main articles: and Table | bgcolor=blue class=indent | | class=firstcolumn | | bgcolor=blue class=indent | | class=firstcolumn | | bgcolor=blue class=indent | | class=firstcolumn | | | |} Five suns From the void that was the rest of the universe, the first god, , created itself. Ometeotl was both male and female, good and evil, light and darkness, fire and water, judgment and forgiveness, the god of duality. Ometeotl gave birth to four children, the four Tezcatlipocas, who each preside over one of the four cardinal directions. Over the West presides the White Tezcatlipoca, , the god of light, mercy and wind. Over the South presides the Blue Tezcatlipoca, , the god of war. Over the East presides the Red Tezcatlipoca, , the god of gold, farming and Spring time. And over the North presides the Black Tezcatlipoca, also called simply , the god of judgment, night, deceit, sorcery and the Earth. First sun It was these four gods who eventually created all the other gods and the world we know today, but before they could create they had to destroy, for every time they attempted to create something, it would fall into the water beneath them and be eaten by , the giant earth crocodile, who swam through the water with mouths at every one of her joints. The four Tezcatlipocas descended the first people who were giants. They created the other gods, the most important of whom were the water gods: , the god of rain and fertility and , the goddess of lakes, rivers and oceans, also the goddess of beauty. To give light, they needed a god to become the sun and the Black Tezcatlipoca was chosen, but either because he had lost a leg or because he was god of the night, he only managed to become half a sun. The world continued on in this way for some time, but a sibling rivalry grew between Quetzalcoatl and his brother the mighty sun, who Quetzalcoatl knocked from the sky with a stone club. With no sun, the world was totally black and in his anger, Tezcatlipoca commanded his jaguars to eat all the people. Second sun The gods created a new group of people to inhabit the Earth, this time they were of normal size. Quetzalcoatl became the new sun and as the years passed, the people of the Earth grew less and less civilized and stopped showing proper honor to the gods. As a result, Tezcatlipoca demonstrated his power and authority as god of sorcery and judgment by turning the animalistic people into monkeys. Quetzalcoatl, who had loved the flawed people as they were, became upset and blew all of the monkeys from the face of the Earth with a mighty hurricane. He then stepped down as the sun to create a new people. Third sun became the next sun, but Tezcatlipoca seduced and stole his wife , the goddess of sex, flowers and corn. Tlaloc then refused to do anything other than wallow in his own grief, so a great drought swept the world. The people's prayers for rain annoyed the grieving sun and he refused to allow it to rain, but the people continued to beg him. Then, in a fit of rage he answered their prayers with a great downpour of fire. It continued to rain fire until the entire Earth had burned away. The gods then had to construct a whole new Earth from the ashes. Fourth sun The next sun and also Tlaloc’s new wife, was . She was very loving towards the people, but Tezcatlipoca was not. Both the people and Chalchiuhtlicue felt his judgment when he told the water goddess that she was not truly loving and only faked kindness out of selfishness to gain the people’s praise. Chalchiuhtlicue was so crushed by these words that she cried blood for the next fifty-two years, causing a horrific flood that drowned everyone on Earth. Humans became fish in order to survive. Fifth sun Quetzalcoatl would not accept the destruction of his people and went to the underworld where he stole their bones from the god . He dipped these bones in his own blood to resurrect his people, who reopened their eyes to a sky illuminated by the current sun, Huitzilopochtli. The , or stars, became jealous of their brighter, more important brother Huitzilopochtli. Their leader, , goddess of the moon, lead them in an assault on the sun and every night they come close to victory when they shine throughout the sky, but are beaten back by the mighty Huitzilopochtli who rules the daytime sky. To aid this all-important god in his continuing war, the offer him the nourishment of human sacrifices. They also offer human sacrifices to Tezcatlipoca in fear of his judgment, offer their own blood to Quetzalcoatl, who opposes fatal sacrifices, in thanks of his blood sacrifice for them and give offerings to many other gods for many purposes. Should these sacrifices cease, or should mankind fail to please the gods for any other reason, this fifth sun will go black, the world will be shattered by a catastrophic earthquake, and the Tzitzimitl will slay Huitzilopochtli and all of humanity. External links *Treasures of Mexico: The Mixtec, Aztec & Maya Codices that Survived the Conquistadors References Category:Mythology